We all lost in Supreme Court same-sex wedding cake case — even conservatives like me

Supreme Court gives victory to a Colorado baker who refused to make cake for a gay wedding.
USA TODAY

I can't celebrate a victory when one person's convictions and rights are deemed less important than someone else's.

In this Dec. 5, 2017 file photo, Charlie Craig, left, and David Mullins touch foreheads after leaving the Supreme Court in Washington. On June 4, 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who wouldn't make a wedding cake for the same-sex couple. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)

My side — the socially conservative, evangelical Christian side — supposedly won a major victory Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who declined to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

But it doesn't feel like a win to me.

Yes, the court ruled in defense of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, and those are principles I deeply value. But I can't help but feel that as Americans, we all lost this case years before today's decision was handed down.

The case, after all, centered on whose deeply held convictions and personal rights — the business owner's or his customers' — should prevail in the legal arena. When the courts get involved in settling our personal disputes, by design one party prevails and the other side loses. And I can't celebrate a victory when one person's convictions and rights are deemed less important than someone else's.

To be clear, important legal questions were at the center of this case. Should business owners be forced by the state to create products or deliver services in violation of their beliefs? When does one person's freedom of conscience violate another's civil rights? How do we safeguard religious liberty in the marketplace without opening the door to discrimination?

The answers don't come easily, despite what some on either side will argue. And the high court on Monday didn't really address the larger questions. Instead, the court issued a narrow ruling that said in this case the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to adequately consider the religious beliefs of the baker, Jack Phillips.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that the answer as to when religious freedom must give way to anti-discrimination laws might be different in other cases. If there's a precedent here, it appears to be a small one.

In essence, the court pushed it back on us as Americans to settle our own disputes whenever possible with the understanding that deeply held values are sometimes in tension, and that if we insist on legal action, we'd better be prepared to lose something important.

Three years ago in Indiana, we suffered through the debacle of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a misguided attempt by some social conservatives to inject their values into the law at the expense of other citizens. Then governor Mike Pence and the General Assembly, faced with a national backlash, were forced to "fix" the law only a week after it was enacted. The "make them bake a cake" side supposedly won that skirmish. But, as with today's ruling, no one really won that fight. We all lost as Hoosiers.

Perhaps it's too naive at this late point in American history to hope that all sides have learned something from our nation's 50-year cultural war. Perhaps it's too idealistic to think that we would listen to Mahatma Gandhi, credited with saying, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

But as someone who once fought in that cultural war, and who now regrets it, I still hold out hope that we can learn to respect and value those whose beliefs and experiences are different than our own.

It's the Christian thing to do. The American thing to do. The right thing to do.

Tim Swarens is a columnist for IndyStar, where this column first appeared. You can follow him on Twitter: @tswarens.